ATLANTA - Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump on Oct 28 told supporters he is “not a Nazi”, using a rally in the final week of a bitter White House race to refute accusations of authoritarianism, including from a former top aide who branded him a fascist.

       As he and rival Kamala Harris, the current vice-president, entered the final stretch of one of the closest US elections in modern times, each candidate and their teams have ramped up the political rhetoric, inflaming an already tense campaign.

       Democrat Harris, who has accused Trump of stoking divisions, criss-crossed Michigan on Oct 28 while Trump headed to Georgia – one of several decisive swing states – where he said critics are accusing him of being a modern-day Hitler.

       Speaking at a boisterous rally in Atlanta, Trump said: “The newest line from Kamala and her campaign is that everyone who isn’t voting for her is a Nazi.

       “I’m not a Nazi. I’m the opposite of a Nazi.”

       The comments come a day after Trump held a major rally in New York’s famed Madison Square Garden that was widely condemned for racist remarks that his allies made during the event.

       They also follow the recent publication of a New York Times interview in which Trump’s longest-serving White House chief of staff and retired general John Kelly said the Republican fits the definition of a fascist – something Ms Harris said she agreed with last week.

       Mr Kelly also said Trump had remarked that “Hitler did some good things too” and that he “wanted generals like Adolf Hitler had”.

       Tensions are soaring in a race that polls suggest is too close to call, fuelled by fears that former president Trump could again refuse to recognise a defeat, as in 2020, and by his harsh rhetoric threatening migrants and political opponents.

       On Oct 28, a fire reportedly consumed hundreds of early ballots cast in a supposedly secure drop-off box in a competitive district in northwestern Washington state. Another ballot box was damaged hours earlier in Portland, Oregon, where police said in a statement that an “intentional act” of arson sought to “impact the election process.”

       Trump has faced renewed outrage after one of the warm-up speakers at his Oct 27 rally in New York called the US territory Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage”.

       Ms Harris, speaking to reporters on the way to Michigan on Air Force Two, said: “Last night, Donald Trump’s event in Madison Square Garden really highlighted a point that I’ve been making throughout this campaign.

       “He is focused and actually fixated on his grievances, on himself, and on dividing our country. And it is not in any way something that will strengthen the American family, the American worker.”

       Later in Ann Arbor, Michigan, at a rally with her running mate Tim Walz and a crowd of around 20,000, she described how “so much is on the line” on Nov 5.

       “Donald Trump is even more unstable and more unhinged, and now he wants unchecked power.”

       Trump’s campaign said the comments on Puerto Rico did “not reflect the views of President Trump”.

       Residents of the island cannot vote in presidential elections, but those within the United States proper – which includes about 450,000 Puerto Ricans in crucial battleground Pennsylvania – can.

       A top surrogate of Ms Harris, former president Barack Obama, was in Philadelphia on Oct 28 rallying her supporters – and assailing Trump’s allies for “trotting out and peddling the most racist, sexist, bigoted stereotypes”.

       He also appealed to Pennsylvania voters with Puerto Rican ties, saying: “If somebody does not see you as fellow citizens with equal claims to opportunity, to the pursuit of happiness, to the American dream, you should not vote for them.”

       Trump used the Oct 27 event – likened by Democrats to an infamous 1939 rally of American fascists in the same venue – to lash out on familiar topics including undocumented migrants and domestic opponents, whom he again branded the “enemy from within”.

       And in Atlanta, he reprised his attacks on Ms Harris, calling her a “hater”, and said former first lady Michelle Obama was “nasty” for criticising him.

       More than 47 million Americans have already cast ballots in early voting – including outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden, who voted on Oct 28 near his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware.

       As the clock ticks down, the challenge for Ms Harris and Trump is both to energise core supporters and pull in the tiny number of persuadable voters who might still tip the balance – especially in the seven swing states where polls have them running neck-and-neck.

       On Oct 29 in Washington, Ms Harris will deliver what her campaign calls a “closing argument” from the same spot near the White House where then President Trump stoked his supporters on Jan 6, 2021, to launch a violent assault on the US Capitol. AFP